187 – Bold Leadership – Celebrating IVMDay with Nicole Smith

November 6, 2025

Episode #187: Bold Leadership – Celebrating IVMDay with Nicole Smith 

In this inspiring episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson celebrates International Volunteer Managers Day with special guest Nicole Smith, Executive Director of Alive. Together, they dive into this year’s powerful theme — “Be Bold and Make Change.” 

Nicole brings a wealth of experience and insight to the conversation, sharing what it really takes to lead boldly in today’s volunteer management landscape. From strategic advocacy and clear communication to accountability and continuous improvement, she offers practical wisdom for leaders who want to make a lasting impact. 

Tobi and Nicole also get real about common challenges like imposter syndrome, the importance of self-care, and how to manage upward effectively within organizations. 

IVMDay – Episode Highlights

• [00:29] – Celebrating International Volunteer Managers Day 
• [02:32] – The Importance of Bold Leadership 
• [06:42] – Challenges and Ethical Considerations in Volunteerism 
• [14:47] – Nicole’s Journey into Volunteer Management 
• [23:56] – Calculated Risks and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome 
• [32:14] – Reflecting on Past Achievements 
• [36:20] – Managing Upward and Advocating for Volunteers 
• [41:35] – Skills for Bold Leadership 
• [46:44] – The Importance of Strategic Planning 
• [52:53] – Delegation and Self-Reflection 

Helpful Links

• VisionWeek 2026 
• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #136: Getting Back to Neighboring with Breauna Dorelus  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #101: Tap the Power of Psychological Contracts with Pam Kappelides 
• Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection Book 
• Leadership and Self-Deception: The Secret to Transforming Relationships and Unleashing Results, 4th Edition Book  
• Points of Light Making Purpose Possible Initiative  
• Global International Volunteer Managers Day Site  
• ALIVE International Volunteer Managers Day Page (with playlist!) 
• AL!VE National Summit on Volunteer Engagement 
• Find Nicole on LinkedIn  

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #187 Transcript: Bold Leadership – Celebrating IVMDay with Nicole Smith 

Tobi: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I have such a treat. We are celebrating International Volunteer Managers Day. It’s November 5th, but I believe that this podcast is going to post on the sixth. But you know what? We’re going to celebrate all week y’all. So the theme for this year is be bold and make change, and there is no one I would rather talk to about being bold and being, making change as a leader than Nicole Smith who is Executive director of AL!VE. Nicole, welcome to the pod.  

Nicole: Thank you. I am very happy to be here.  

Tobi: Awesome. So let me tell you a little bit about Nicole in case you don’t know her. She’s a dynamic leader in volunteer, intern and community engagement with over two decades of experience in both nonprofit and for-profit sectors, including the performing arts, social services, sports, media and entertainment. 

As a certified volunteer administrator, CVA, hats off; we’re both CVAs. Cheers. Yes. Cheers. And recognized thought leader. Nicole has been at the forefront of creating scalable, impactful. Capacity building, volunteer and internship programs that emphasize recruitment, engagement, retention, and mentorship. 

She has developed recognition programs that have strengthened organizational cultures and volunteer experiences. Her professional background brings a creative and innovative approach. To her leadership in the nonprofit and volunteer sectors with a BS in broadcast design, art and a certification in diversity, equity and inclusion from the University of Florida of, sorry, of South Florida. 

Yes. Yes. She is on point and ready to go. Right. That’s the man. It’s so funny because I have a degree in art history, so we have these sort of like liberal arts degrees that I think really prepared me for the critical thinking that’s required for, yes. Volunteer engagement and working in the people’s profession, you know? 

Nicole: I would agree. Hands down. 

Tobi: So Alive is a sponsor. Before we get started just talking about bold leadership, we’re doing something that we commonly don’t on the pod usually. I have a list of questions and we do have a list of questions and I interview the guest, but Nicole and I are buds and we started just chatting over email about something we could do for International Volunteer Managers Day and we just decided we would have a conversation. 

We have some broad-brush strokes of ideas about bold leadership. We want to talk about, we’re going to share some of our experiences, maybe some of our mistakes and some of our successes. And Nicole, before we do that, alive is a sponsor of, and a partner of International Volunteer Manager’s Day. Tell us why that’s important to alive and what it’s all about. 

Nicole: So it’s extremely important because. Literally alive is the, um, association of Leaders and volunteer engagement and supporting volunteer leaders is literally why we exist to be a part of the international community and on the planning committee for the official International Volunteer Managers Day is, it just makes complete sense. 

Somebody said it really well, they said it’s like it’s our Christmas, it’s the one day out of the year where the focus is all about us. Right. Right. And we all know volunteer managers in general don’t like that focus. We like to be in the background. We don’t want all the attention, but often out of sight, out of mind. 

Right. And it’s, it’s, this is our day to remind people that we are here and what we are doing. And the importance of the work that we are doing. So, for Alive to be connected with it, it just makes sense.  

Tobi: Yep. And as Volunteer Pro and the work we do with Leaders of Volunteers and makes sense for us to have this conversation and talk about, and I hope folks walk away. Yeah, I’d love this idea of Christmas. Because it’s like, yes, it’s all about you. It’s spa day. It’s spa day. You’re probably not going to do it today. Well, today’s the day after. But now this weekend you could have a spa day, and you could say to yourself, whether it’s at home or at the spa, whatever it is. Do a little self-care day and celebrate. 

Do your happy dance because your work is so important. I’m just saying that to our listeners, ma. You know, many of our listeners are active leaders of volunteers right now, so you know what this is all about you, y’all. Yep. So let’s talk about the theme. Be bold, make change. It suggests that volunteer managers need to lead differently. 

Why do you think that’s important? Before we get into our own leadership stories, why do you think that’s important right now? And gang? I’m already going off the script. Well, there’s a flow and I start thinking about it. I go, well, we need to set the stage first, right? Yeah, that’s okay. I usually, my guests, what your origin story and how you got into volunteerism. So, after we talk about why volunteerism is important and leaders of volunteers are important, especially today, why is bold leadership important today? 

Then I’m going to ask you to share your birth story. Let’s start with that. Now you can see we’re we are seriously not at the bar. We’re not at happy hour and promise we’re promised. We’re like, morning, we’re up. We’re just having some tea. Nicole’s having her water gone on before we started and we talked. 

This is like an aside. But anyway, both of us are having backwards days. We’re not doing our normal routines in the morning. So, we are a little bit wacky today. So just that’s how. So, but talk, let’s talk about why being bold and bold leadership is important, especially right now. It feels like it is so important right now, and it also feels like it’s scary to do right now. 

Nicole: Yes, yes to both. It is scary. But to that, I say do it anyway. Do it scared. Mm-hmm. Right. And you’ll work through that. But it being so important today in the climate and what we’re living in and so many different things are happening, points of light. They have their strategic volunteer engagement plan that they’re hoping to increase volunteerism in the next five years. 

If you are listening and you’re here in the US we have this thing, it’s called their SNAP benefits, and it’s basically a governmental program that helps people and they’re changing, and parts of those aspects are volunteering a certain amount of hours in order to receive the benefits. And so there are a lot of large-scale things that are happening, and we all know that volunteers are integral to changing our community and building community. 

And everybody remembers the volunteers. They’re like, oh yes, let’s get all the volunteers and get them out there. But nobody’s ever thinking about it, well, it’s like. We’re going to plan a wedding and not have a wedding planner, right? Just like people just expect that the wedding’s going to be amazing, but there’s somebody back there calling the shots, making sure that everybody’s where they’re supposed to be, all of those things. 

And so, but often people, they just forget, and I don’t think anybody ever does it on purpose. Everybody is crazy and trying to get their stuff done and doing the best that they can. So, if it’s not in their face, and if it’s not, we’re not drawing attention to it. People just are not thinking about it right now, more than ever. 

As all of these initiatives are happening, we need to speak up and say, and also don’t forget about the volunteers and also this is a process that will help with that, but we have to speak up and let me tell you, it’s, it’s a little bit challenging for me because I grew up, I had like a double whammy, right? 

My parents are from Central America, so I come from a, a Latino background and my dad was in the military. And it is you like, you don’t do it. We definitely came from the, you only speak when you’re spoken to. Like I, you don’t ever like speak up or, or talk back like, and funny thing what they think is talking about. 

Yeah. I’m just like, I was just answering your question, but so I. I was used to staying silent if it’s something that I didn’t agree with, or if it’s something just because out of respect, I just didn’t say. But I started to learn that if I don’t speak up, how are people going to know? How are people going to understand the importance? 

How are people even going to be aware of what it takes to organize something for a volunteer to get involved? I can’t make the assumption that they know because they’re in their world. So, it’s our job to speak up and let people know. And it’s amazing what happened. Every time the number of people or the number of times people have gone, huh? 

Oh, really? I didn’t. Oh, people aren’t maliciously trying to forget about volunteer engagement professionals, but you must speak up so that they know that you’re there. And so, I just think more than ever. With the, like I mentioned before, with the large initiatives that are unfolding before us, there’s going to be a lot of attention to. 

Volunteerism and we have to make sure we stake our ground and say, yes, all of these can happen, but this is the support, the investment, all of these things that we need in order for what you want. This is what we need to make that happen.  

Tobi: Right. I would also argue, I posted on LinkedIn, I think it was last week, I talked about compulsory volunteering, like court ordered community service. You talked about snap, like public benefits. When there’s policy recommendations or policy suggestions, so people that receive public benefits, now all of a sudden, it’s required that they volunteer. Right. In Tennessee, our Tennessee Pro Tennessee’s promise. In order to get a scholarship to go to college, you need to have service-learning hours required. 

Yes. In the UK there’s been recent conversations around immigrants and whether immigrants should be required to volunteer in the community, and those bring up real ethical concerns that need to be voiced. First of all, in my post I talked about indentured volunteering. Oh yeah. So, we’ve got to think about it, and there’s not a black or white answer. 

I think it’s a gray area that some people don’t even, because they’re not experts in the field. We are the experts, all the leaders of volunteers that are doing the work on the ground level daily. All of the organizations, but particularly the leaders of volunteers as well as the volunteer leaders who are leading other volunteers. 

Right, that they understand the nuance, as you said, like they understand the nuance that other people just don’t understand in addition to. So, the first step is like, is this ethical? Is this, how is this helping? The volunteer who’s being voluntold. And we had a really good conversation on LinkedIn actually, about this. 

And for some people, the organization does not bear responsibility around why volunteers are there. The volunteer gets to choose whether or not they’re there. And I argue, is it really a choice if it’s compulsory? So, there’s that question, right? But on the other hand, it’s an awesome way for people to get integrated. 

If you’re a new immigrant, you want to meet people in the community. It’s a great way to meet people in the community. Mm-hmm. Or mutual aid societies. There are usually informal networks of folks who are helping one another. So, there’s a lot to unpack there. So that’s something that volunteer managers in their bold leadership can step up and say, hey, let’s talk this through and make sure that there’s mutual benefit for everybody. 

Exactly. And then, as you said, what are the resourcing requirements? Because there is still a lot of bias around how people think about volunteerism because people are not paid. There is a bias that it is, does not take effort planning or professional folks supporting or skilled folks, I should say. Because we have plenty of all volunteer, a hundred percent volunteer run organizations that are doing well and have volunteers running the organization. 

And they are skilled, they are learning, they’re self-taught. So those two things in today’s world, and then I would add for the boldness and it feeling scary is there are things happening where if you have a federal grant, you need to remove, like DEI from your language, right? So, you have people. Who is being bold in creating a new language. 

Brianna Dollis I think of off the top of my head, and I’ll link to my conversation with her, but we had a con great conversation on the pod, but she is so wonderful at creating new language and being creative on the fly to talk about the same issues, but we’re not using the language that’s now been sort of co-opted or folks feel worried or apprehensive about using, even though the concepts need to still be there, right? 

We still need to make this happen. We still need to make volunteering available to as many people who want to participate as possible. Again, that choice of whether or not people want to volunteer is an interesting conversation, as I talked about, but I feel like it’s a time to speak up. And like you said, we’re not always born speaking up. 

We weren’t raised to speak up. I also was a military brat for a while in my childhood, most of my childhood. And so we learned like there’s a chain of command in our family and it isn’t me at the top. Yes, yes sir. 

So, let’s back up because I did want to ask you about your volunteering and nonprofit birth story. How did you get into volunteerism in the first place?  

Nicole: So, I was working at a performing arts center in the marketing department. My background was marketing and yeah, it was basically marketing. And I had worked for several radio stations on the marketing side of the radio station, et cetera, et cetera. 

So, I landed at a performing arts center in the marketing department and the volunteer manager position became available and I read the description and I was like, oh, I can do this because I’m organized, I could do this. So I applied for it and I got it and about three months into it I was like. What did I just get myself into? Yes. Organization is like only half the battle. Right? Right. But I fell in love with it and I haven’t turned back since. Yeah,  

Tobi: yeah. We’ve talked before and we know we have a lot of intersections, but I also, before I started, I, well, I inter, I started a program for Scratch. From Scratch. I built it, developed it for Unhoused Youth in San Francisco. I was hired by an organization to start up this program, and I wasn’t a volunteer manager, and I was the program director, so I was never. I never had volunteer manager as my job title, but before that I was the media communications director for a national, federal program for youth employment. And so, I did, like, I’d worked on media buys with radio and tv. 

Yes. And like, yes. And I was so on point with like, there was this old newsletter called the PR Reporter that used to come out and I would like to educate myself and be really cutting edge. And it came out in paper, in the mail and it came out every week and it, and I just educated myself on the people side of engaging in. So, my media and marketing stuff and outreach stuff was very much. Community based. I had a business round table we formed and we did a proud of it campaign. So, we went to every job corps center. I was working for Job Corps at the time, and I would get all the community involved with the young people and the staff, and we would get all involved in being ambassadors for Job Corps. 

I knew I couldn’t, like my one person in the regional office serving four states was never going to be able to cut it, right? So, I knew I couldn’t do it without internal and external support. So, in some ways it was volunteer engagement. At the very least it was community engagement. Mm-hmm. And then when I started the program at Larkin Street, I realized really quickly when I was designing that I needed mentors for our young people who were, you know, were in our transitional living facility. 

They were starting jobs, they were going to school, and I felt like they didn’t need the mentorship of staff; they needed the mentorship of people in the community. So, I partnered with the San Francisco Bar Association and recruited a bunch of attorneys, and it was just fabulous, right? The young people got so much more out of talking to professionals and seeing how they conduct their lives, social service staff. 

Yeah. So that’s kind of how it happened for me. But when you got into it. When did you, do you remember a moment in time you talked about this is different, was there a time where you realized that the type of leadership you needed to engage in was different than sort of what you were doing to manage in your, in previous roles as, was there a moment in time with when it came to volunteer engagement in particular, that you were like, oh, this is a different, this is going to require a different leadership style? 

Nicole: Yes. So, I wouldn’t say like one moment in time, but just in general observation, the number of meetings that me as the volunteer manager, volunteer engagement manager, was not invited to, and then events would happen and it’d be like, I would, I just didn’t even know they were happening. I didn’t know you needed people, but. 

The marketing department was always there. The programming department was always there. Like all of these other departments, they were always there. And it was, and it just, I was like, Uhhuh. And that’s what I realized. It’s volunteer management tends to be an afterthought. Mm-hmm. And like I said before, it’s not that people aren’t in, are intentionally doing it, they’re just not thinking about it. 

Yeah. So that’s when I realized that I had to start inserting myself. And if there was a meeting like, hey, do you mind if I come and sit in on this one? And hey, do you mind if I, I had a colleague who, they have like a public calendar, and she just started showing up. She was like, if it’s on the calendar, I’m just going to start showing up. 

And she started contributing so much to the meetings that she eventually started. Being put on the invite and she didn’t have to search the calendar because she got tired of decisions being made and being ruled down that directly affected her, and she wasn’t in the room. Yeah. So that, I would say that general observation was just like, huh, people don’t understand the importance of the voice of the volunteer manager in the room. 

Tobi: Yeah. I don’t think they understand volunteer management in general. Yeah. Like if you think about it, it’s a relative, now I will say this with a caveat. Middle managers, there is an endemic sort of challenge for middle manager managers in any organization who are stuck between the frontline, whether the frontline is paid or unpaid. 

And leadership and volunteer managers find themselves there. So do comms folks. Development folks to a certain extent, but usually somebody in the development department is in the C-suite. So, there is that. We have to recognize that there is a managing up, down, and sideways laterally that’s required of the position in the org chart. 

But it’s also true that for many, because it’s a relative, if you think about the timeline, because I’ve thought about this a lot. Is this intentional? There is a bias, I believe there is a bias for unpaid work. Mm-hmm. There’s a way of people thinking about unpaid work and whether it has value overpaid work. 

That bias is very alive. Alive, no pun intended in our sector and in the community at large. Nice to have, not need to have. But also there’s this feeling of, if you think about the sort of the timeline, the historical timeline of when most nonprofits start as an on a group of volunteers. Many nonprofits started Yep. 

As a small group of volunteers, very passionate, soft, neat in the community, made it happen. And at some point, decided to professionalize, usually correct. The first person who got professionalized as his executive was the executive Director. Director. Correct. Then what? Who’s next? Well, probably the fundraising person, whether they have a contracted grant writer or have somebody out doing outreach. 

Next is comms usually, and finally down the road, okay. We finally have a little bit of money. Maybe we’ll hire a leader of volunteers. So, if you think about that historical timeline, our profession is relatively new.  

Nicole: Mm-hmm.  

Tobi: And it goes to show, and there’s really, in the corporate sector, there’s really no sort of. Similar thing, CSR aside, because that’s relatively new as well, so people don’t have an understanding. Plus, it’s not taught in school, right? You can go to college and get a communications degree correctly. You can go, there’s many leaderships, nonprofit leadership programs out there. There are many philanthropy and development programs out there. 

There are very few, and our organizations are some of them that provide that type of service of actually learning the trade of the skillset, the craft of leading others towards a mutual goal. And so that may be one of the reasons why folks don’t understand, or two reasons. One. One is the existing bias; second is middle management. 

Actually, three reasons. Third is that it’s a relatively new field. I think the fourth thing is that the executive director doesn’t have the vision to really see. All the contributions. And so, there is this huge need to manage up. Yeah. Like, it has to happen. Otherwise, you, in most organizations, unless I’ve been, I’ve worked for organizations and consulted with organizations where the executive director completely gets it, and I kind of ask them why? 

Like, you just understand volunteers. What? Oh because I was a volunteer. Uh, I started as a volunteer, right. I’m like, ah, you’ve been there. There it’s, oh, there it’s Right. So, yes. Well, let’s talk about calculated risks, and we kind of understand that we’ve explored what this moment is in leadership, in, in volunteerism. 

But let’s talk about calculated risk, because I think this is where boldness comes in, and is taking calculated risk. It’s not taking willy-nilly risks. It’s taking risks that we’ve thought about; we’re informed, but it is still a risk. It could go wrong. Yeah. Can you think of a time where you took a calculated risk that went against conventional wisdom, maybe in the volunteer space? 

Nicole: So, I know I’ve, I think most of my calculated risks are against conventional wisdom, and I just keep it to myself, and then when it works, that’s when I tell people, because yeah, typically when I, if I, and I learned that early, I’m like, Hey, I’m gonna try this, and people will look at me all kinds of sideways. 

But I think one of the biggest calculated risks that I took. I don’t know if it necessarily goes against conventional wisdom, but it was starting actually. No, it did. It was against it. It was starting an advisory team at one of my organizations because I wanted the input and the feedback of the volunteers who were frontline on the ground understanding what’s going on. 

And when I had taken it to my supervisor and a couple of people, I know their eyebrows went up because they’re like, oh, this is just going to be a committee of people nagging and complaining and it’s going to be a just a, well, I can’t say that. A complaining session. Yeah, a poop session. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I told them, I was like, I really believe in this, and I believe, and I was like, well, it will only be that if I allow it to be, if we give them real purpose and meaning and mitigate that, then it’s not going to be that. 

Because I don’t have time to sit around for, for an hour for people to just come in and complain. I was like, if you’re not coming in here to change something and make so, and have solutions, then you don’t need to be here. And so I know it was, they were very skeptical, but it turned out to be phenomenal. It made. 

A light and the difference in the organization. And I am proud to say, yeah, that even after I left, they have kept it as an integral part of the program that was there. Yeah. That was I And now, because, I remember they’re kind of like, you want to do what? Yeah. You want to have a bunch of volunteers come around and just sit and complain about everything. 

Yeah. Good luck. Yeah, exactly.  

Tobi: Exactly. Yeah. I remember, I’ve taken a lot of calculated risks. It’s. I hear a lot of people talk about imposter syndrome. In fact, we were having a conversation in our volunteer management fundamentals live, one of our coaching calls, one of our students’ participants was feeling overwhelmed. 

I started asking questions and I said, Well, are you feeling like you’re an imposter? Do you feel like you shouldn’t be in the seat? Because she was initially a volunteer for the organization. And I said, you’re here. And I said, the thing that folks don’t realize is that everybody who is taking chances and being bold experiences, imposter syndrome at some point where you doubt that you’re the right person for the job. 

Yep. I remember starting this podcast. It took me, I will tell people. Honestly, it took me two years to actually pull the trigger on the and getting it going uhhuh. Mm-hmm. And partly I didn’t know how to do it, so I had to take a class and figure out how to do it and all that. But even then, it took a long time, and I remember the thoughts in my head going. 

Who are you to put your opinions out there? You know, I’m doing a lot of how to on the pod as well as talking to fabulous guests like you, and we’re exploring really sometimes controversial topics. Mm-hmm. And I never really shined away from controversy because I started out as, when I was young, I was a punk rocker. 

So, if you want to be controversial, then I was an activist. I was doing some activist work and so I was very involved. Speaking up and speaking out. It’s almost easier when you’re doing it as a group, if you’re marching as a group, right? You’re not marching by yourself, but being in a podcast as an individual, you’re, you’re putting yourself out there right in front for people to, if they don’t like what you have to say. 

And I’m like, well, you might not like what I have to say, but I’m going to do it anyway. Right? But like you said earlier, but I remember like my early, I would tell people that my early interviews, like the bottoms, my feet would sweat. I would be, so, the imposter syndrome was so, the voice in the head was so loud. 

I’ve heard Oprah talk about imposter syndrome now, talk about success. She was successful. So anytime we’re stretching ourselves, our amygdala in the back of our brain, our, like a primal part of our brain starts to send off. Like, is this safe? Is this safe? Right? Because there’s a big unknown. Right. But the payoff on the other end can be so amazing that if you stay in the grounded in the outcome, that the potential, the upside is the juice worth the squeeze. 

As one of my business coaches used to say, is it worth the pain to get the outcome? That at some point I kept thinking about the audience and there really, there were only a few podcasts out there, and I thought, you know what? I have years, decades of experience, and things I can share. I should share them and not be greedy. 

Right. Not hold them back. So, I did. Exactly, and here we are like, I’m almost like too about 190 episodes. So that was a calculated risk, not necessarily around volunteer leadership, but in some ways. So, I encourage folks, fear is just part of the journey. I think the operative word is calculated, right? 

In calculated risk. Yeah. We’re not just going like, I’m going to, I’m going to do a podcast. I’m not going to figure out what it’s going to be. I’m not going to figure out how to do the tech side of things and understand it. Right. Not that I always, you know, I have a, a editor, all I’m going to figure out what my take is. I’m going to prepare ahead of time for every episode. 

This is all calculated. This is calculated, right. I think for folks the, this is the time. Now. We don’t want to go crazy either, or we don’t want to put our organizations because we are the front facing person. Whether the organization realizes it or not, you are on the front foot of the organization. You’re the community’s face of the organization. 

Nicole: That’s why, kind of like you said, it’s not willy nilly. It’s not like, I’m going to go do this tomorrow, and you just have you thought it through? What are those actions that you’re going to take? And I just wanted to kind of touch base on the imposter syndrome. And a lot of people don’t know my story, but I actually, yes, I am the executive director of the Association of Leader and Volunteer Engagement, better known as alive. 

But I actually, when I was applying for the position, I actually emailed somebody to rescind my application. And I was like, you know what? I read through the job description again. I cannot do this. I’m not the person that you want. And I was so grateful that she was just like, well, tell me more. Like, tell me why. 

And I explained all the reasons. She was like, you know, just left it. You never know what could happen. Just leave it. And here I am. Yep. So, we all. Face it. We all think, just like you said, like why are we in the room? And we were just on, I was so, I mentor, I mentor some up-and-coming professionals for, it’s called the test tour network. 

And we literally, we were on a call just yesterday, and we were talking about imposter syndrome, and the guest speaker was so phenomenal. One of the things that she said to help cure is remembering what your why is. Yes. Why did you do this in the first place? Why do you want to be here? Why are you in the room? 

Because I’ve had placed times when I’m in the room and I’m like, I’m not supposed to be here. And I was like, well, if I wasn’t supposed to be here, I wouldn’t have been invited. Clearly, they saw something. Clearly, they asked if somebody has asked, and other times you just bust up in there and then be like, I’m not sure why I’m here. 

But remember your why, because that will be bigger than your personal life. You’re personal, it’s you are here to affect change. My voice is going to make an impact and making it more of an outward reason as opposed to an inward feeling can definitely help quiet that voice when it starts talking to you.  

Tobi: Absolutely. And we forget another thing. I was, yesterday, going through boxes. I’m packing up a bunch of stuff. We’ve been transitioning to the West Coast off and on for a couple of years now. We keep moving stuff west and I was going through some of my archives and I have a box, one banker’s box that has all my big projects in it. From graduate school onward. So, all the programs that I developed started from scratch.  

Nicole: Mm-hmm.  

Tobi: All my writings back in the day when I got a degree, a master’s degree in art history, I was out writing art criticism for performance art. I was right. I did not even remember all the things that I had done. 

And I was looking at all of these programs that would never have existed at all. Or campaigns. I had the archive from our pride of it campaign. I had the archive of our youth opportunity program where I set up the entire program from scratch. We had no staff, no sites, no program. We had a budget seed money. 

That’s it. And I go through it, and I realize, wow, like this is your life. This one banker box, you know, and I’m Type A. So y’all, my life is very much wrapped around like. The things that I have done. So, I’m very like achievement oriented. So, I’m looking at all the people and some of these programs still exist today. 

Some of them don’t because they’ve lost funding back in the day. But some of them, like the higher up program at Larkin Street, are still active today. It’s just like 20 years later. And I think of all the young people that have been through that program, and I think of all the people that have read my writings, and I think of all that, and I think to myself. 

If I would’ve allowed myself to let that fear speak louder than my big why, and my big why was always the end user, the young person. You know, I loved working with youth or volunteers as a leader, volunteers. Imagine you don’t necessarily work with every volunteer in your organization, but you set up the policy, the tone, the culture that impacts that ripples across. 

Yes. And so, part of that is really you’re impacting more lives than you even realize You think you’re only impacting you, you think you’re impacting just the people around you, but you’re impacting more.  

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Let’s talk about managing upward, because that’s kind of part and parcel of, in some ways imposter syndrome. ’cause it’s sometimes imposter syndrome keeps us, mm-hmm. 

From managing upward and advocating upward. What’s your advice for folks to have the courage to challenge leadership when their volunteer activities, initiatives, programs that set strategy aren’t being strategically supported adequately?  

Nicole: So, one of my favorite things to do is invite them into the fold. Invite them the day in the life of a volunteer or invite them if you have an event that’s coming up, invite them to be a volunteer. If you have a volunteer appreciation event, invite them to come and sit down and fellowship and break bread with the volunteers who are working in the organization. 

When they start to make those connections and see the impact that the volunteers are having and how much the volunteers are invested and love the organization and see the results of what had happening, it starts to really connect and become something more tangible as opposed to intangible, oh, the volunteers are over there doing that, as opposed to they’re in the mix. 

Because now they feel it, they touch it. If they’re eating, they might smell it like they’re in a room, right? More senses are activated and now they begin to understand because they have become a part of it. And typically, when people have become a part of something, now again, like I was saying at the very beginning, you have their attention because sometimes you can talk about it all day, you can scream, you can jump up and down. 

But having them come and serve alongside, we would invite staff, like maybe like, come usher for a day or come alongside us and do this for the day. The change in attitude towards it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And. A lot of people, especially in nonprofit, if you were talking to them, ask them, Hey, are you a volunteer? 

Like elsewhere? Have you ever volunteered somewhere and nine times out of 10, they’re like, yes. And it’s like, well, what was that experience like for you? And if it was great, we want to create that here. And if it was horrible, that’s what we want to avoid here. And by having your help and your support, that is what we can do. Bring them into the fold instead of always talking at them.  

Tobi: Bring them into the fold. Absolutely. And I think even your board as well, like your board, your ed, your C-suite, have time. For them to come and understand. I think part of it too is people’s biases get blown out of the water. They think volunteers, oh, these little nice people, they’re meek, they’re just here to serve and, and you’re like, oh, this person’s the CEO of X, Y, Z. Exactly. And this person is on the PTA at blah, blah, blah. Yes. Or this person had a career doing blah, blah, blah. Or this person has raised X number of kids and is finally Yes. Whatever their lived experience is and their connections in the community and their intelligence is often under, you know, because the bias against like unpaid work. 

Nicole: It’s amazing to me the number of people that, for whatever reason, they hear volunteer and they automatically think uneducated. Yeah. Because they’re giving their time for free, oh. And it’s like a lot of these people, they retired and CEOs; they have run companies, like you said, they’ve raised families. It’s just mad skills and I don’t understand or why, maybe that’s something we need to dive into, like why the psychiatry of that is volunteer equals uneducated or unable or less than capable. It’s phenomenal.  

Tobi: Yeah. Or don’t have an opinion. Because I can tell you right now, some of my bad, I was just talking with somebody yesterday about this, one of my clients. I said to the people who are the loudest, that speak, the loudest, that have the, that are the most courageous about change that needs to happen on the, from the volunteer perspective. 

Yeah, those volunteers are often the ones that give the most as well. And they’ve earned a Right. Exactly. They have a vested interest. They earned a right. So, yeah, I’ve had many of those volunteers, and I had to learn how to like and listen. I was like, okay, let’s talk about this. You know, at first, I’d be very, I’d be feel very, you know, I’d be standing in, in front of a group of volunteers and they, they didn’t really, but you know, in your mind you’re like freaking out. 

You’re like, ah, they’re in the back of the room with pitchforks on fire, or they’re going to kill me right now. If you’ve ever been the face of that, a change in an organization, maybe it wasn’t even your decision, but you’re there. You’re like, ha, my go-to now is like, tell me more about that. And I lean in and then it’s like it diffuses everything. 

And then we get to work, we start working side by side. We try to, it’s not that hard, but it is scary as heck when people are grumpy about something and a lot of them are grumpy about something. So, and it, not necessarily my fault, but I’m the, I’m here to be the person to have to fix it. So, yep. But when we look at the next generation of volunteer managers. 

What skills around risk taking, you know; we’re talking about bold leadership is our theme today. Yeah. What skills around courage and risk taking, you know, we think about this as an emotional thing. We need to be able to overcome our fear. Right. But there’s also a skillset with that. Leadership has, there’s a skill around it. 

Mm-hmm. What do you think are the skill sets around being bold that maybe weren’t as critical 10, 15 years ago that are really critical now? What are some of the areas that you think people need to build their skill sets?  

Nicole: Well, I think talking a little bit earlier from what I was talking about, speaking up and knowing when and how to do that, speaking up. 

But another thing for me, I think, is accountability and not being afraid to make a mistake and then owning it when you do. Learning and moving forward from it and not avoiding it or running away from it or being willing to have the conversation. And that’s what I love about volunteers and volunteer engagement. 

They will toughen you up because they have a lot to say uhhuh, and a lot of times they will. They will gladly tell you. And if you are going to be a leader worth your salt, you have to be able to hear the things that you are not doing well and not crumble under it. Yeah. Like take it, if it has to hurt a little bit, let it hurt. 

Right. But use it as a growing opportunity. Right. That’s what oysters are. It’s a piece of sand. That’s where pearls come from, right? Oh yeah. If that little piece of sand never got in there, the beautiful and valuable pearl would never have developed. So I, that’s just something that I see a lot and. Just, and the more accountable you become, the more people can trust you, the more they’re going to invite you into rooms because they know that you have the organization’s best interest at heart and that you can be trusted. 

And more and more today, because so many people are not accountable. If you show even just a hint, more accountability than somebody else, you’re going to stand out. And I think that is a skill that is so important today that maybe it wasn’t as important 10 years ago because we’ve seen a trend where lack of accountability is becoming the norm as opposed to really standing in it. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. So, here’s what I’ve heard from you in terms of concrete and tangible skills. I mean, this is fabulous. Because PO Folks leadership tends to be very kind of amorphous. Some people think we’re born with leadership skills. No, we’re not.  

Nicole: No.  

Tobi: Now we might have been. A rabble-rouser by nature from the beginning. I was a very precocious child. Y’all.  

Nicole: No, never. Yeah, yeah. 

Tobi: I was precocious. But being precocious doesn’t necessarily make a good leader. Right. So, I want to break this down a little bit. So you talked about speaking up, knowing how and when. That is wisdom and a plan. There’s some planning to that. 

There’s some understanding and listening skills around that. There’s also some strategy, knowing what your strategy is so that when the opportunity arises, you’re ready to pounce on it, right? Yes. And if you don’t have a strategy, then you’re not going to know when you should speak up and when you shouldn’t. 

Right. The second area around accountability, walking your talk. It’s not just a desire to walk your talk and this sort of, this value judgment on us. There’s actual skill around it. There’s continuous improvement. Tactics that you can take where you’re saying, you know what? I’m going to pilot test this. 

Yes, I don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but here’s what we’re going to pilot test on a small level, and I’m accountable. I’m taking accountability for analyzing and deciding next steps after that. So that’s a skill, right? Test, pilot testing, and continuous improvement. It’s not only an attitude, but accountability is also not only an attitude. 

It is a skill. Yes. And then language and conversation and influence. That’s another skill set. There’s a great book and I’ll put a link to it. It’s fabulous. It’s called Super Communicators. Ah, we just, it’s Charles Duhigg, D-U-H-I-G-G, and he talks about communication. We think of communication also as sort of inherent, like we either are good communicators or not. 

We can learn how to give presentations better and all that, but there’s way more to it. And there are people that are super communicators and people who aren’t. And we did a training on this inside the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab last month. We were doing a whole thing on like leadership and influence, and so I did a whole seminar on communications and how to have these conversations, and there’s just a lot to it. 

That’s also a skillset I would add to your list. Planning as a skillet. Strategic planning as a skillet. And I will shamelessly plug Vision Week right now because we’re starting Vision Week. We’re in the middle of Vision Week right now, so I guess my plug is too late, but, but if you want to join late and get the replays, do it. 

But beyond that. Realistically strategic planning, having reviewed folks’ strategic plans, having helped people learn strategic planning. It is a skillset and it’s one that our field, I got to be honest with y’all, we’re not good at it. We’re not good at it, but this is why we teach it inside the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab. 

And again, if you’ve missed Vision Week or it’s going on right now as this, I think when this post will be on our fourth day of Vision Week. We post the archive inside the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab. So, if you’re interested in getting that content, join the Impact Lab and you can review everything, get our templates, the workbook, everything. 

But back to the planning part of this, one of the key parts of that planning and planning, people think it’s a glorious to-do list that’s not planning and that’s definitely not strategy.  

Nicole: Yeah.  

Tobi: And what we want to do is think about how we’re aligning volunteer services and all of our goals, objectives, activities, et cetera. 

With that, they directly roll up to the organization’s larger goals so that we can just like point at it like, well, if you’re wondering what we’re doing here, we’re supporting this, the organization’s goal of X, Y, Z, whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Right. And there’s no reason why volunteers shouldn’t own the program’s outcomes and take credit for the program outcomes for the programs within which they serve, especially direct service. 

It’s like we have a lot of conversations about outcomes, metrics, and impact, right? And I’m like, well, the impact of their direct service volunteers is the impact of the program. The volunteers should own that. They should take credit for those if kids are moving up grade levels or reading levels, if gardeners are learning gardening, if patient. 

Experience is improving, and volunteers have something to do with that is their impact, right? So, we don’t need to come up with new and new flavors of impact. It’s directly what they’ve done. So that plan not only helps you organize strategically, it also helps you align with your organization’s larger goals rather than op continuing to operate in a silo, right? Even if your organization is siloed, you don’t have to accept that, right? Yes. She’s like, Nicole is like putting her hand up going,  

Nicole: Yes, What do you think about that, Nicole? No, I think it’s amazing. And there’s, because it reminded me of one other skill. That I wanted to bring up. Well, and I’m going to have to bring up this book that I’m reading because it’s amazing. 

But it talks about seeing clearly and basically what that is, learning how to give people the benefit of the doubt. Because just like you said, if we’re working in silos and we’re trying to get things done, if we always think that the person in the other department is out to get us, we’re going to respond in a way that, oh, they can’t, we can’t work together. 

We can’t get these things done. As opposed to, hey, if they didn’t send that email for whatever reason, maybe they didn’t get it, maybe it went to spam. Maybe let’s have a conversation and talk. And one of the great, like the book was talking about, one of the greatest skills is being able to not let your emotions create stories in your head but get to the facts of the situation and learn to work together. 

Right? Sit down, have a conversation. And that goes back to, I think probably like the communication that you were talking about and. If you’re sitting and you’re having talk and you’re talking across platforms, now you know that your goals are aligning to the larger organization. But if you never sat to have that conversation based upon. 

An assumption that you made. Yes. I just also wanted to just touch on, I love the fact that because we all kn, we know that volunteer engagement, like on a large scale at a high level is two sides. It’s the strategy, the. The, like the operation, the tangible, like the, this side. Yeah. But it’s also the people’s side. 

Yep. It’s the relationship side. And you can, I, you cannot have one without another. Yep. The other. Yep. Like you have to be able to, to succeed in both sides, because you can be as organized as everything, but if you don’t have a relationship with the volunteers, they’re not coming back. And if you have all the relationship all day, but they don’t know like the registration form isn’t working. 

Yeah. Then they’re not coming. Yeah. So it is so important to have both. And I love the fact that when you’re like, let’s talk about skills, we really address both sides of that. 

Tobi: Exactly. And I would say, well, before I want to respond to that, but also, what’s the name of the book? And I’ll link to it. Oh yes. It’s called Leadership and Self-Deception. Ooh, I love it. It’s so good. Okay. I’m gonna link to it. So, a couple things on that. Uh, that is actually, I’ve done facilitation of psychological contract, and if you don’t know about psych contract, I’ll link to that episode with one of my friends who, Pam Capelli, who wrote basically a meta study on psych contracts. 

She talks about all the studies, but psych contracts, basically what we expect from other people. And then so what volunteers expect from the organization, what the organization expects from volunteers, and it’s usually implicit. So, it’s never spoken about benefit of the doubt. I’ve done facilitated groups of mixed staff and unpaid volunteers, and I ask, so what do you think staff expect from volunteers? 

What do you think volunteers expect from staff or the organization? The benefit of the doubt comes up on both sides, but nobody ever does it. No. It’s like giving us the benefit. Don’t assume our intentions. Right. I also think when you said the two sides of the coin and folks, you can’t see Nicole, but she had a triangle, kind of her fingers making a triangle and there was the one side on the people’s side and one side’s the paperwork or the analytical side. 

I would also say. That it is a myth that volunteer managers have to be both those people or have to do all of that and be good at all of it. Mm-hmm. This is something we have such a large span of responsibility than any other role. I would hazard a guest in a nonprofit space, have run many, develop many programs, and hire many staff. 

Mm-hmm. That the volunteer manager’s span of responsibility is very wide. Yes. And it takes, it’s very hard to be both a, an incredible person and an incredibly organized continuous improvement like processing so physicians heal thyself. It’s called delegation. And we need, we need to have people in our, if you are not walking the talk and you don’t have in volunteer services, even if you’re a department of one, even if you’re hosted in another or you live in another department, you can, let’s say you’re not the people person, let’s say you’re the data, the analytical, you’re really good at process improvement. 

You’re really good at all that good stuff Then. Let’s get a volunteer welcome team on board. Yes. Who has the people skills to run on that side of your house?  

Nicole: Yes.  

Tobi: The other skill is delegation and self-reflection. No one has a hundred percent mad skills in every department. Nobody. That isn’t impossible. 

We’re not that. Nobody is that. So, it’s an impossible attainment to try to achieve that. We would be good at everything. So finding our other half, they even talk about this in entrepreneurship. They say if you’re the visionary for your business, you should not be the person like running the nitty gritty. 

Now I actually do that in my business, but it’s really rare for someone to be able to do that really well. But what’s your thought on that, Nicole? 

Nicole: I love it. I was on, like I said, I was on our mentor call literally just last night. And the speaker was phenomenal. Her name is Amelda. I’ll try to see if I can find her on LinkedIn or whatever, but she is phenomenal. 

And one of the things that she said, and I think she quoted somebody, it was either Michelle Obama or Oprah, somebody definitely worth quoting, but this was so powerful. She said, you can do anything, but you can’t do everything. Yep. So, yep. Figure out what you can do and delegate the rest. 

Tobi: That’s right. Or just do not decide to do it. That’s the other thing. Like we can scale down. We don’t have to always, yes. There’s also a myth of like, you know what; we’re just going to have to do more with less. No, we’re not. No, nobody. It’s not possible to clone yourself. You shouldn’t be working weekends on your off hours. 

No, you shouldn’t. You should be self-caring. You should be Yep. Rebuilding back those cells and that emo that emotional fortitude. So that emotional fortitude. So we that we can be better leaders when we are at work. Yes. One last one. We’re going to wrap up because it’s an hour and we could go on for what I did. 

Nicole: That’s happened already.  

Tobi: Goodness gracious. So, one last question for you, for our listeners. Okay. What is one calculated risk that they might take in the next 90 days that would demonstrate bold leadership? 

Nicole: Set up a meeting with your executive director. Talk to them about volunteer engagement.  

Tobi: There you go. Easy breezy. Not easy to get on their calendar, necessarily. I remember when I was a director, program director, my calendar would book out like two to three weeks. Seriously? Yeah. People go like, I want to get on your calendar. Okay, well I’m spac in three weeks. So, on that. So, get that done, y’all. Nicole has spoken. 

The second thing I would add is to look through. This is something we’re doing in Vision Week. Look through what you’ve got on your plate and focus and start to learn how to say no. Learn how to set boundaries. I agree with things that are nice to have but are not contributing to the central goals and that are overwhelming unless you can find somebody to delegate. 

And if you can’t, you’ve got to start setting boundaries. So figure out in the next 90 days, one thing that you need to say no to and you know you do in your heart of hearts that you need to learn how to say no. Figure out your script for this and do it. Say no, say no. I love it. Just say no. Yeah, just say no. 

Yeah. So this has been such a great conversation, Nicole. And wait, way better. We were totally like whacked out this morning, like we’re not in our normal space. 

Nicole: What is happening? And I told you it was ggoing tobe okay, didn’t I? Yeah, once we got started, it just; the passion just flowed. There you go.  

Tobi: Yeah, exactly. So, to our listeners, be bold, and be strong. You can do this. This is why you chose this. Yeah. Or this chose you. There’s a reason you’re here. You’re making a huge impact on all kinds of people that you will never meet. Yes. And when you get to my age and you look through that Banker’s box projects, you can say to yourself, I did good. 

I stayed true to myself. And that’s the most important thing, is to stay true to yourself. And. Do the things that you love. So let’s keep you in this field, your bold leadership. Yes. It needs to be calculated. It needs to be smart. It needs to be also self-fulfilling. Yes. It’s hard. The work is hard, but it’s so meaningful. But take care of yourself or you won’t last. Or you won’t. It’s so true. So what, last question I always ask my guests, Nicole, before we wrap up, what’s something you’re looking forward to in the year ahead?  

Nicole: That’s the cool thing. So, I’m going to say I’m looking forward to celebrating my father’s 80th birthday. 

Tobi: Aw, that’s awesome. That’s so cool. Yeah,  

Nicole: I don’t, yeah.  

Tobi: That’s great. I love that. I am looking forward to finally moving to the West Coast, my personal. 

Nicole: Beautiful.  

Tobi: Yeah, it’s been a few years since I came. We keep moving stuff over, but you know, I’m really a West Coast girl, all things said, and I love where I’m from and I can’t wait to go back and live there permanently. But to our audience, just want to encourage you, be bold. Really take in this International Volunteer Manager’s Day. Yes, it happened yesterday and we are celebrating one day late. But that’s okay because you can celebrate all week and think about Treat she self.  

Nicole: And you know, AL!VE had a committee put together just for International Volunteer Manager’s Day and they created, the committee, created this. Fabulous playlist of music to uplift your spirits, so click on that and just be happy for the rest of the week. I think there’s like 50 something songs on there the last time I checked, but that’ll just like treat yourself to some positive energy and reminding you of how important and worthy you are. 

Tobi: I love that. Is that in the link that you sent already On the A live page of IVMB. Oh, excellent. Yep. It’s on there. Yeah, I’ll point it out. Y’all in the show notes. Thank you everybody for listening today. I hope you’re feeling good. I hope you’re feeling so proud of the work you do. Yes, and if you like this episode, share it with another leader, volunteers who needs a pick me up and join us next week. Same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care everybody.